


Blistering Hellscape (General Hux x Reader)

by SilentWanderlust



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Potential Phasma Book Spoilers, creepy crawlies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 09:55:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13761657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentWanderlust/pseuds/SilentWanderlust
Summary: Your mission with General Hux to deactivate the Parnassos orbital defense system sours.





	Blistering Hellscape (General Hux x Reader)

The planet of Parnassos landed somewhere between blistering Hellscape and inhabitable deathtrap. Exactly where you never anticipated landing.

You stood beside General Armitage Hux looking at a rusting command station. You each wore tactical armor covered in dusty colored cloth. Strips of long grey material tickled your nose and mouth, leaving only your eyes free to the elements. Sand stuck to the fabric, coating your body in rough dust. And vicious looking beetles jumped from your uniform every time the wind swept them up to meet with your clothing.

“I understand why Captain Phasma got out of here as soon as she could,” You turned to Hux who had a hand on his blaster. “I would burn the planet down to get away from this place.”

It was difficult to determine his mood with his face nearly covered, but the dangerous glint in his eye gave enough away.

“Yes, well,” Armitage looked on at the command station, “she nearly did.”

You nodded and followed his line of site. Metal curled from the walls like wilting flowers and deep brown rust decorated every inch of the building. The ever mobile sand creating an ocean-like effect on the station, rolling like waves. Watching the optical illusion gave you motion sickness which you shook off by looking towards the sky.

The wind kicked up again as you began the trek towards the dilapidated command center. With a final look back at your speeders, you prepared yourself for whatever you might find.  

Armitage placed a hand on your back as you walked.

“You didn’t have to come,” You yelled at Armitage over the rushing wind. The loose material around your armor flung out in every direction, pulling dirt and beetles with it.

“Parnassos is not a place I would allow you to go alone,” Armitage flicked a wandering beetle from your cheek.

“I wasn’t going to go alone,” You protested, “I had my team but you relieved them and took their place.”

“I did not believe them to be the ideal team.”

“Why? There’s almost nothing here,” You kicked a small dune, creating a noxious cloud of sand and indigenous life, “besides these bloody beetles and sand.”

The stifling afternoon sun hit the skin across your eyes, turning it red. Sticky sweat tumbled down your back under your armor. The heat dried your throat and slowed your mind.

“The  _bloody_ beetles will burrow inside you, grow their spawn, and stop your organs to eventually kill you.” Armitage tugged up on his gloves, ensuring there was no entrance for the tiny menaces.

“Then I won’t let them get inside me to murder me,” You unclasped your blaster and held it up as you neared the station.

Your recon showed no immediate threats or defense mechanisms. Aging cannons lined the wall but they were not live. You pulled a circular hunk of scrap metal from your pack and heaved it at the entrance of the building.

It slammed into the metal door, dinging it, but nothing rushed to defend the building.

“Was that necessary?” Armitage asked, raising his blaster to face the door.

“Just a final check,” You hurried to the door, looking into the muggy desert. Nothing moved in the distance. Everything was silent and no form of intelligent life presented itself as you watched.

You flipped your blaster in your hand and shot the door lock. It fizzled and sizzled as smoke billowed up in the air. The code pad melted and the door popped open a pinch.

Shoving your foot in the opening, you slipped in the doors and heaved them open. They slid over your gloved fingers so you used your shoulder to make a space large enough for Armitage to also make it through. The doors scraped against the floor in protest but opened enough that you could both get inside.

You grabbed Armitage’s hand and pulled him in. He fell against you and your took the opportunity to steal a kiss. Pulling the wraps down his face, you pulled him towards you. His lips tasted like sand and summer heat.

“Y/N,” Armitage grabbed you waist. “We need to keep moving.”

“Nobody’s here to see us,” You protested.

“But people can hear us,” He reasoned, pointing to the comm unit on his ear.

Nodding, you turned in towards the hall. Dozens of shabby doors lined the walls. Some hanging on their hinges, some so rusted they curled in on themselves, almost hitting the floor.

The main doors closed and the hall fell into darkness. You clicked on the light on your weapon and held it up into the hall. The sound ricocheted off the walls along with the light casting extended shadows at each door.

“Take the left,” Armitage pointed down the hall, “I will take the right. Clear every room and meet me at the end of the hall where it turns west. Do not remove the covers on your face. There may still be beetles inside.”

“Got it,” You stood flush against the wall beside the first rotting door. Using your foot, you pushed it open, giving anything that may run out a chance to escape. When nothing bolted from the room, you spun, blaster up, looking into the space. A quick sweep of light showed an office with a broken desk and decaying chair. Parasitic slug-like creatures slithered over the furniture, consuming the metal.

Thinking better of shooting into the scourge, you stepped back into the hall, closing the door to lock them inside, away from yourself and Armitage.  

Moving room to room, you cleared each space. You checked on Armitage often. He appeared so focused you wanted to ensure he didn’t fall into his own head and miss something crucial.

In your observation, you grew complacent. Opening the final door before the hall, you tricked a trap. The door pulled a string and a hoard of sand and beetles poured into the room. Grey sand tumbled into the hall like waves on a beach.

“Shit,” You stumbled backwards into Armitage who turned at your curse. He grabbed you to ease you into his arms instead of falling.

The sand began piling high in the hall, wrapping your feet with ease. Beetles jumped in and out of the sand, crawling up your legs. Kicking hard, you knocked hundreds of them from your legs. They clung tight to your wrappings, trying to bite into your skin. Armitage shook his arms, slamming them against the metal wall, crushing the beetles climbing to the exposed skin of his face.

“Say it,” You called as Armitage grabbed your wrist, pulling you down the hall, away from the rising sand and hungry beetles. “I know you want to.”

Armitage looked back as he shot the pad leading to the west hall. The doors flew open as the sand chased you down the hallway.

Shoving you inside, he started ripping the grey coverings from you, heaving them into the hall on the other side. Doing the same with his own clothes, he stumbled getting the last of the fabric away from himself. This left you and him in your tactical gear, still strong enough to withstand a bite from the beetles, but vibrant black enough to be noticeable back in the desert.

Sand trickled into the room and Armitage slammed the lock pad, shutting the doors once more. They crunched as they closed between beetles and sand. You swore you could hear them scream.

A few of the vile creatures lingered on your side of the door but stuck to the sand, refusing to touch the metal. Scuttling forward, they hit the bare ground, and hurried back to the safety of the sand.

A rusting overhead light flickered above you, relieving you from the stifling darkness.

Hands shaking, you turned to Armitage. “Say it.”

“I told you,” Armitage grabbed you waist again and kissed you. Now that the grey wrappings were away, you had better access to his lips and took full advantage of it. “Let’s keep moving.”

You smiled against his lips and stole one more kiss before stepping away.  

“That was hasty of you, General,” You pulled up your blaster and pointed it down the hall, the direction you were planning to head. “Anything could have been on this side of the door.”

“Including you,” Armitage dragged a hand across your back as he moved in front of you.

“Flirting on the job?” You teased, following him down the hall, blaster aloft. Your body temperature dropped without the stifling heat of the protective cloth. “What a productive member of the team.”

“There is nothing here,” He huffed. “We made sure of it.”

“And then we ran into a booby trapped beetle near death experience.”

Armitage made no reply, instead continuing forward.

You coughed from the stale air in the never ending hallway. Looking around, there were no circulation vents or windows. Not like ventilation would work in a building a hundred years abandoned.

But clearly weaponized bugs were still viable in such a desolate place. Wondering how they sustained on nothing but sand, Armitage interpreted your thoughts.

“Do you hear the buzzing?” He held up an arm to impede your forward progress.

The whirring of engines lingered in the distance, drawing you towards the end of the hallway. It sounded mechanical and you smiled. The only working machine in this place had to house the planet’s orbital defense system.

Following Armitage, you hurried down the hall, keeping pace with his long strides. Walking to him was jogging for you.

When you came to the door, you pushed your ear against the warm metal, listening for anything on the other side. The buzzing was louder than ever as you leaned against the entrance. Nothing else indicated danger so you nodded to Armitage and shot the lock on the door.

The rust on the door caused it to fall in on itself as it opened, decorating the floor in aged metal.

Inside the room lay a ramshackle command center. An oversized screen covered the entire far wall with molding chairs in front of it.

And then you encountered the stench. Sitting within the chairs were decaying, human remains. The bodies lay haphazardly across the chairs, having falling out of a sitting position over time. You turned and gagged, feeling bile rise in your throat. Armitage scowled and covered his nose with his arm.

Stepping farther into the room, your eyes watered with the sting of rot. Swallowing the bile, you pushed a chair with your foot. It grazed the body and you yelped as bones and maggots dropped to the floor. The maggots scurried away and you heaved yourself over the control panel, desperate to ignore the rest of the room.

Armitage came to your side, still covering his nose. Pointing to the power source, he nodded.

“How is this still live when nothing else is on this planet,” You choked on the air and covered your mouth with your palm.

“I do not know or care,” Armitage began working beside you on disarming the defense system. “The quicker we work, the quicker we can leave.”

You both worked silently, running through the system for the disarming program.

The minutes passed as they would surround by human remains. Every second the stench worsened, and every second you felt like you couldn’t make it one more.

“We need another exit route,” Armitage searched his datapad for a site map. “We buried the entrance.”

With a few taps on the pad, he nodded and put it in front of you to memorize.

“Got it,” You waved him away and continued working.

Finally, you found it.

“Yes!” You yelled as you shut down the defense system and the command center. The whirring fell to silence as the screens blackened with a pop of electricity. “Let’s go.”

Grabbing Armitage, you hurried from the room, down this hall and that, searching for the alternate exit. The complete hush in the halls send shivers down your neck as lights above flickered and went dead.

You both activated the lights on your blasters, moving through the pitch black halls.

“Do you think they have a defense mechanism if the system shuts do-”

You were cut off by the sound of doors sliding open. Flinging your light around, it passed over hatches releasing the noxious grey sand you’d come to associate with beetles and desperation. It spilled from the opening like a waterfall and your light caught the sight of the beetles jumping in and out of the sand stream, preparing to bite into your skin.

“I despise their archaic bio-weapons,” Armitage yelled over the rush of incoming sand.

You and Armitage bolted down the halls, hoping to avoid the sand. Slipping and sliding, you felt beetles crush under your feet. The scent from the command room now mingled with the air of the halls and your stomach churned.

“I wish we had fire to burn the sand into glass to hold it in place!” You hurried after Armitage, coughing on acrid air.

“The exit is not far,” Armitage grabbed your hand and pulled you along faster. Your legs burned with adrenaline and strain as you ran faster than you ever had. But the faster you ran, the quicker the sand hurtled towards your prone forms.  

“How is it still following us?” You screamed, feeling your lungs tighten as you spoke. “I’ve never seen sand behave this way.”

“Must you anthropomorphize _sand_?” Armitage sassed. “It has no behavioral traits.”

“Give me a language lesson later, love,” Your throat burned making your sentence peeter off at the end. “Just get us out of here before we’re consumed by beetles and sand.”

The dryness in the air seeped into your airways, making you hack hard as you ran. Heart ramming against your chest, you felt your pulse beating in every inch of your body.

“What do you think I am trying to do?” Armitage called as he slammed into a door. With little thought, he blasted the lock pad and pushed the doors apart.

You slipped between him and the door, hurling yourself into the desert. Armitage let the doors go and followed you around the side of the building. Looking down at your compass, you pointed the direction of your speeders.

“Give the order!” You called, barely audibly above the rush of sand and wind.

You shuttered realizing you and Armitage were black specks amongst nothing but grey. Any tactical advantage was lost being so visible. If anybody was guarding the command center, they could easily shoot or capture you.

When you reached the speeders, you fell onto the seat like a heavy sack, taking hacking breaths. Turning it on, you let it boot as you watched Armitage take his own seat.

Puffs of sand build around you as you moved through the desert.

“Do it,” Armitage yelled into his comm when you both were far enough away.

Within seconds, a bright light coarsed from space like a God striking his people. It landed directly on the command center, exploding in a mass of metal and sand.

She shock of the explosion momentarily blinded you and left flaming white specs in your vision as you sped away from the destroyed building.

* * *

You stumbled from the transport ship on to the Finalizer. Armitage stood behind you, holding you steady. Sand covered every bit of you both, coating you in layers grey. He looked far more regal covered in sand than you did in your best evening wear.

The clean air made you groan in relief and you were suddenly grateful Armitage was holding you steady. You would have dropped to the cold metal floor if he had not been.

Medical drones whizzed by, assessing any potential damage.

“We aren’t injured, but make sure the droids check for signs of beetle bites,” You told the Officer overseeing the hangar. “We were just attacked by sand.”

“I’m sorry,” The officer covered her mouth with the back of his hand, “You were attacked by _what_?”

" _Sand_ ,” You growel as you shoved past her towards medbay for further assessment. The officers and stormtroopers watched the two of your leave, unsure if laughing was appropriate. Many chose against it considering General Hux was among them.

Armitage followed you from the hangar, pulling clumps of sand and sweat from your hair.

“Can you believe this?” You held up your arms, appraising the damage. “We were bested by sand.”


End file.
